Taco Bell
13223 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 9006
I think it was almost 20 years ago that I was talking with my good friend torbakhopper about the genius of Taco Bell walking up Market Street in San Francisco. I can’t remember exactly if he was for them or against them, but I think he was for them, although he may have just been being sarcastic too, but in a post-modern especially delirious/delicious ironic sort of way.
In any event, the beauty of Taco Bell was in its consistency. You knew *exactly* what you’d get there when you ordered it. You ordered a taco supreme and you got a taco supreme. The same taco supreme you had yesterday or last week or two years ago or back on Milpas Street in Santa Barbara during college or the one across the street from the church back in junior high school. You knew exactly what you were getting. There was no surprise and great comfort in this predictability.
Taco Bell of course isn’t the best thing for you. For a few years I used to justify it by eating their "lite menu" that came and went. It was a poor but feel good substitute for the real thing. But even as the signage churns with the machinations of the hacks in corporate marketing at Taco Bell HQ (yum), the core menu seems to solidly remain the same. Taco, taco supreme, bean burrito, burrito supreme. Dr. Pepper mostly. Little things like the lite menu or the current fad crazy "Volcano" menu come and go, but the core menu, that always stays the same, loyal, consistent, and mostly there for you when and wherever you need it most.
We lost that little Taco Bell dog this year too by the way. YO QUIERO TACO BELL!